Political Holocaust

Political Holocaust

Tamil is a rich language remarkable for its proverbs and epigrams.  When I see the mauling of the Congress even after its humongous defeat, I am reminded of the apposite Tamil proverb : “the horse not only threw the rider down but also started digging his grave.”  The PM like the ex PM whom he  fondly referred to as  Maun Mohan Singh practises his predecessor’s maun vrat while his loyal lieutenants unleash their hatred on  the battered and bruised Congress leaders, almost like flogging a half dead arthropod.  The Modi-ists  in and outside his cabinet raise a lot of issues – issues that can be in the backburner till all the major pre-election promises Modi had made- that catapulted the ‘chappan ‘ inch ki chhati’ hero to the broad PM’s seat -are fulfilled. Modi had roared that what the Congress could not do in sixty years he would do in sixty months. His priorities were curtailing the inflation, curbing corruption and putting India back on its development rails. Five weeks are gone. This is the sixth week. No one had asked him to do what God had done when he created the world in six days and declared the seventh as the Sabbath day. But in PM’s own words he does not have the luxury of a Sabbath day- which in arithmetic calculations points to 4 Sundays of extra work per month-  i.e., 240 additional days in sixty months for him to deliver (i.e. 8 additional months more to work) reducing his 60 months target to 52 months.  

But his loyalists want to waste no time to prove to him that they will ensure his goal of congress mukht Bharat- decimate Congress from the face of the earth. It is like Henry IV,worried about the possible return of the incarcerated king Richard II  in the Tower of London saying: “Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?” Modi’s greatest asset is not even Amit Shah, but the evergreen litigant Subramanian Swami who to prove his loyalty to the PM in the saddle has filed cases against Mrs Sonia Gandhi and her son Rahul, the president and the Vice-President of the much maligned, disliked, and humiliated Congress party. He has outdone Modi’s affectionate ‘Shehzada’  title given to Rahul by his vitriolic twitter reference to the mother and son as TDK and Buddhu( TDK is Tadaka, the witch in The Ramayana while Buddhu is  ‘imbecile’) who would be soon in jail on charges of embezzlement that he has filed in the court. His attack drags all the known faces of the Congress into mud that include Sam Pitroda, (the former technology adviser to Rajiv Gandhi and Chairman of National Innovation Council and National Knowledge Commission under ManMohan Singh) and Shashi Tharoor whose late wife was earlier referred to by Modi as Tharoor’s  “ 50 crore girl friend”. Going many steps farther than Modi, Swamy has alleged foul play in her death as a result of Russian poison( he is not just an economist, but a forensic expert) and has filed a PIL alleging Tharoor’s complicity in her death.  The breaking news now is CBI has been asked to probe Vadra’s companies and book him for malpractices. At least the Modi-ists are compassionate to ensure that Mother and son, daughter and son in law have each other’s company in jail.

The other Modi-ists  blame everything under the sun on Congress. If increased railway fares are announced before the Railway budget, it is to carry out Congress’ decision( why- no one can question because the Modi-ites enjoy a brute majority) . If gas prices are increased, freight charges are increased, they are done in keeping with the trend started by the  Congress. If there is a steep rise in inflation it is because of the Congress policies. So out of the sixty months ( rather 52 months) he had given himself, at least 12months have to be borne in patience as the unbearable heaviness of the heritage handed to Modi by the witchy Congress. This great act of the Modiparty(it is no longer known as the BJP) reads like the lamb and the wolf story from the Aesop’s Fables where a wolf comes upon a lamb and, in order to justify taking its life, accuses it of various misdemeanours, all of which the lamb proves to be impossible. Losing patience, it says the offences must have been committed by someone else in the family and that it does not propose to delay its meal by enquiring any further about the matter. The morals drawn are that the tyrant can always find an excuse for his tyranny and that the unjust will not listen to the reasoning of the innocent.

The Modi-ists rake up a lot of other issues such as the UCC(uniform Civil Code), return of the Pandits to Kashmir, use of Hindi as the official language( amended to Northern states only- which in essence means no south Indian officer  can serve in the Northern states without a mastery of Hindi for official communications and transactions), General V.K.Singh’s tweeting against the Army Chief-designate, linking him of supporting "dacoity" by an army unit that once worked under him-these  are instances of shooting their mouth at will unmindful and unconcerned about the fall-out of such controversies.

PM is a mute listener to the kind of noise his followers are making. For nearly five years of Man Mohan Singh’s second innings, the BJP kept paralyzing the parliament and the media gleefully joined in the political merry go round with the opposition and the ruling Congress engaged in ‘tu, tu mein, mein’ ( and the Congress getting the media stick). Now when the depleted and weakened Congress tries the same game, Modi-ists and the Media attack it saying that the public will teach the party a lesson for  its hubris. Congress is mocked at for seeking the LOP –which as per the rule book it does not have the number to stake its claim. Its protest against inflation and hike in railway fares are dismissed with scorn as childish and vapid. The Tamil phrase- the drum gets its beating  on both sides holds true of the Congress.

I write this not in defence of Congress. It is at this point of time a dead horse. It does not have the strength to protest or paralyze the government. Congress should realize its awkward position and act wisely, gracefully and with humility. It can counter the ruling party’s statements about coffers being empty, it can wait to see how Modi keeps his pre-election pledges and keep a low but intense profile to show to the youth and  the middle class that it is an opposition party with a difference. It is time for the party to end its introspection, face squarely the unpleasant truth of the vacuum in the party’s leadership in states as well as at the national level and its lack of communicability and take remedial action to reach out to the people that they are not as bad as they had been vilified.

As for the ruling party, instead of calling names and attacking the Congress as a hubristic party and seeking vendetta , it should be graceful in victory and seek a genuine P-P ( party to party) relationship, give credit to what ManMohan Singh and his men had done during their ten years rule( even the worst rulers  do have something positive about them).

Graceful in defeat, magnanimous in victory – is it too much to ask?